Russia to build IoT satellite constellation

Russian space agency Roscosmos says it will create a new mega-constellation of satellites to serve Internet of Things demand.

The ‘Marathon’ constellation will likely comprise hundreds of craft and operate alongside Russia’s Glonass GPS system and as part of Russia’s planned ‘Sphere’ project which calls for 640 satellites, and to be fully deployed by 2026.

Russian Academy of Cosmonautics member Andrei Ionin told news agency Sputnik that it was necessary to involve international partners into the Marathon creation, as the system should be designed to work across the globe. He went on to say that Roscosmos should cooperate with global technology giants able to produce both equipment for the satellites and customer terminals.

“There are several segments of the satellite communication. While [US] Iridium has been long operating successfully on the voice satellite communications market,… [US] OneWeb and Starlink will dominate the broadband Internet segment. The Internet of Things is the third segment. [Work in] this segment will be successful if services are provided at the lowest prices, as the systems that I have mentioned will provide such services as well,” Ionin told Sputnik.
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